Starbucks office workers are reportedly balking at orders to relocate to the company’s new $100 million Nashville hub, with some left-leaning workers repulsed by the prospect of living and working in the capital of deep-red Tennessee.
The java giant has been struggling to persuade employees to move from Seattle — even after warning some they could lose their jobs if they refuse, Bloomberg News reported.
The pressure has centered on Starbucks’ roughly 100-member North America sourcing team, which was told to move down south or risk losing their jobs.
To sweeten the deal, the company has dangled stock grants worth tens of thousands of dollars and offered other incentives to lure workers to Nashville, according to Bloomberg.
Employees were also told they would have to accept pay cuts of at least 5% due to Nashville’s lower cost of living, the report said.
The company has offered to reimburse up to $2,000 in travel costs for employees to visit Nashville and “explore” the city, while dangling retention bonuses starting at around $15,000 for those who decline to move but agree to stay on through at least 2026, the report said.
The Post has sought comment from Starbucks.
Starbucks has long cultivated a progressive image, backing racial-equity initiatives, promoting LGBT inclusion and aligning itself with other left-leaning causes — a posture that has helped cement its reputation as a “latte liberal” brand. Last year, the company closed hundreds of stores and conducted sweeping layoffs in the wake of sales declines.
Dollars and cents appeared to trump politics for Starbucks as it sought to expand its corporate footprint.
Starbucks’ Nashville push is part of a broader $100 million investment that is expected to bring as many as 2,000 jobs to the city over the next five years, with a temporary office opening this spring and a permanent hub slated for 2027, according to company plans.
The new office will serve as a second corporate base alongside the chain’s Seattle HQ.
The move is designed in part to place supply chain, sourcing and technology teams closer to suppliers and faster-growing markets in the Southeast, while tapping into a lower-cost labor pool than the Pacific Northwest.
Seattle’s sky-high cost of living — with housing prices far above the national average — has increasingly pushed companies to look elsewhere. A growing number of firms have been shifting jobs and expansion plans to lower-tax, Republican-led states in the South and Southwest in search of cheaper labor and operating costs.
Even former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has left the Seattle area, relocating to Miami after more than four decades in the Pacific Northwest.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also decamped from the Seattle region, moving to Miami after nearly 30 years in the Pacific Northwest — part of a broader migration by wealthy executives to low-tax, Republican-led Florida.
Meanwhile, a recent survey of Washington state businesses found deepening pessimism about the local economy, with 44% of executives saying they are considering moving out of state. Companies were found to be more than twice as likely to expand outside Washington as within it, citing a growing tax burden and rising costs.
Meanwhile, Washington has moved to hike taxes on its wealthiest residents, approving a new “millionaires’ tax” that imposes a 9.9% rate on income above $1 million — on top of an existing capital gains tax.
While Starbucks is poised to save a big chunk of money by relocating parts of its corporate workforce to the Sun Belt, the strategy may carry risks in the short term.
Bob Phibbs, a retail consultant who previously served as chief operating officer and chief marketing officer of It’s A Grind Coffee, said the move risks disrupting a critical team, warning that institutional knowledge and supplier relationships could be hard to replace.
“This is the team that secures everything 18,000 stores need to operate. Coffee. Cups. Milk. Syrup. Equipment. Packaging,” Phibbs told The Post.
“You can replace the title. You cannot replace the relationships a sourcing manager has built with a supplier over 10 years.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
